4 - (SYM 59) Alternative Models of the Role of Perceived Threat in the Link Between Trauma and Engagement in Aggression Toward Partners and Children

Individuals who have been exposed to relatively more potentially traumatic events (PTEs) are at elevated risk for engagement in intimate partner aggression (IPA) and parent to child aggression (PCA; Marshall et al., 2019). Theory suggests that these associations are a function of elevated threat perception such that trauma-exposed individuals are more hypervigilant to potential threats and, in turn, perceived threat leads to conflict that is more likely to result in aggression. However, an alternative model developed among non-human animals posits that, following trauma, perceived threat leads to submissive behavior and elevated aggression only occurs in the absence of perceived threat (Ferris, 2000). Within the CIRCLES Study, we tested these alternative models by asking participants to rate the degree of threat they perceived from their partner or child (i.e., the person toward whom their aggression was directed) immediately prior to their engagement in aggression during distinct episodes of aggression. Although a variety of forms of threat (e.g., threats of abandonment, threats to the social hierarchy) were assessed, results were clearest in terms of threats to one’s physical wellbeing, as expected based on the underlying theory. Specifically, a trauma x threat interaction emerged in the prediction of PCA (t = -3.23, p < .01) indicating that perceived threat was positively associated with the severity of PCA engaged in among men and women with relatively low PTE exposure [exp(b) = 1.17], whereas perceived threat was negatively associated with the severity of PCA engaged in among individuals with relatively high PTE exposure [exp(b) = 0.87]. In the prediction of IPA, gender differences emerged such that a significant trauma x threat interaction was only observed among men (t = -2.15, p < .05), and the results varied according to the degree to which men appraised their prior PTEs as having threatened their physical wellbeing. That is, perceived threat was positively associated with IPA severity among men with relatively low levels of PTE threat [exp(b) = 2.42] whereas perceived threat was negatively associated with IPA severity among men with relatively high levels of PTE threat [exp(b) = 0.42]. The gender difference for IPA may be due to limited variability in the degree to which women view men as threatening. Overall, results support the alternative model derived from non-human research and bring to light problematic assumptions that have been made about how between-person characteristics function with persons across contexts.